Ethel Cain Delivers Wistful Sophomore Album ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’

Summary

• Ethel Cain has returned with her sophomore album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You.
• The 10-track record centers around her first love, Willoughby Tucker

Ethel Cain has returned with her sophomore album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, a wistful project that the artist herself describes as “one long love song.”

The 10-track record serves as the prequel to Cain’s debut album, Preacher’s Daughter (2022), and tells the story of the singer’s first love, Willoughby Tucker. Cain recorded and prodcued the record over the course of the last year, though the tracks’ writings span across her entire career.

“Somehow it’s harder to believe that this one is finally out than it was with Preacher’s Daughter. What I initially mistook for hating this record was actually realizing that this record still resonates a lot deeper with me than Preacher’s Daughter did by the time it came out. It still feels raw and too close to home. I realized I don’t hate this record, I’m just still overwhelmed by how real it feels. This is the scariest record I think i’ve ever made.”

She added that her favorite track on the album is “Willoughby’s Theme,” and that “Perverts” exists because she made that track first with Matthew Tomasi. “I wanted to try and sonically capture the nauseating, dizzying fear and rush of falling in love and realizing that no matter what happens inside it, you will be fundamentally changed by it in the end,” she explained. “That still rings true to me now.”

Listen to Cain’s new album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, on Spotify and Apple Music now.

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